


Perchance to Dream

by flibbertygigget



Series: Nightmares [1]
Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Gen, Nightmares, movie aftermath, some blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-04-26 03:48:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4989073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flibbertygigget/pseuds/flibbertygigget
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raphael bolted upright, hands reaching for the sai that were usually at his belt. It took a moment for him to get his bearings, and when he did he collapsed back into his mattress. It was just a nightmare, just a damned nightmare.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perchance to Dream

"Leo! Don! Mickey!" The motionless figures strung up in their glass cages didn't answer him. They barely breathed. The only assurance Raphael had that his brothers were still alive was the steady beep of the heart monitors.

Raphael flung himself at the glass again, but still it held steady. It must have been bulletproof or something, it didn't matter, because it was preventing him from saving his brothers _damn it_ , and every moment of his failure was another moment they suffered, had their blood sucked out by the mosquito-like machines-

"You're too late." Raphael whirled around, sai in hand.

"Shredder," he growled.

"Nothing you do can help them now," said the Shredder, stepping out of the shadows. "When I have what I need, I will dispose of their drained bodies and take over the city."

"Not if I stop you." Raphael's voice sounded small and distant to his own ears. His mind was racing, trying to get them out, to save his brothers, but he wasn't Donatello or Leonardo. He was only Raphael, who fought without thinking because that was all he had ever known. That lack of planning was going to get his brothers killed.

The first blow of Shredder's blades was blocked with his sai, but the second hit him on the side. Raphael was flung into the wall, his sai knocked from his hands. As he struggled to get his bearings, Shredder lifted him up by his plastron and threw him into the cage that held Leonardo. Raphael stood slowly, his head spinning, and returned to his fighting stance. He wasn't going to abandon his brothers, even if it killed him.

"You are a fool," Shredder said. "You seek to protect that which is already doomed. You fight a battle that you can only lose." Raphael snarled and threw himself at the Shredder. Shredder caught him and threw him to the ground, but not before Raphael dealt a glancing blow to his opponent's helmet. Raphael stared up in horror, frozen.

"No..." he whispered.

"Don't you see?" said the other him, but it couldn't be him, _he_ was him. "You are the one who did this, Raphael. You hurt your brothers, you put them in these cages, and now you will be the one to kill them."

"NEVER!" Raphael reached out and tore the tubing from the machines, howling as blood splattered the floor and began to pool around him. The other him surged forward, tearing through flesh and shell and pinning him to the cage behind him, but Raphael didn't despair until he heard the keen wail of the flat-lining monitors... 

Raphael bolted upright, hands reaching for the sai that were usually at his belt. It took a moment for him to get his bearings, and when he did he collapsed back into his mattress. It was just a nightmare, just a damned nightmare.

He knew that he couldn't get back to sleep after... that, so Raphael got out of bed and picked up his sai from the bedside table. It was difficult not to immediately punch something, but he knew that he couldn't wake his brothers, not when he was like this. So Raphael snuck carefully to the only place he could go to work off the nervous energy after yet another nightmare.

Raphael took a deep breath as he entered the dojo, trying to heed his training and find his center. _Fuck that_ , he though savagely. He had never been one to buy all that hippy-dippy zen crap. Raphael slipped easily into the first kata, movements needing no thought after over a decade of training. With every kick and stab he imagined making the finishing move in a fight with Shredder.

Second kata. Raphael's moves sped up now as he mentally beat Shredder again and again. Shredder, who was dead now, but stop haunting his dreams. Shredder, who had exposed just how weak he really was. That weakness was what terrified Raphael, even more than the nightly horrors. No one should be able to beat him and his brothers, it just wasn't on, but Shredder had handed their asses to them. Raphael couldn't let that happen again.

Third kata. 'Cause if Shredder could beat them, someone else could. And the dream was right. Raphael had been knocked out, he'd gone down, and that had almost cost his brothers their lives. He might as well have put them in those cages himself.

Fourth kata. So Raphael had to train. He had to get stronger, faster, better, because next time they might not be so lucky, and that fact was terrifying. His brothers might be idiots, but they were his responsibility, and if Raphael couldn't protect them...

Fifth kata. Raphael was beginning to slow down now, muscles tired from exertion, but he pushed through the more challenging moves. Life without his brothers was... shit, it was unthinkable, even attempting to contemplate it made rage boil in Raphael's veins. In a way, he welcomed the nightmares. They kept him from getting comfortable, from abandoning the extra training for more useless sleep. Before Raphael had been a fighter, but now, with every night a reminder of his failure, he was becoming a warrior. And Raphael didn't care what anyone else thought, they needed him to be a warrior now, with the world getting more and more dangerous.

Sixth kata. He could hear his brothers stirring in their rooms. Soon he would have to abandon his training to eat breakfast with them, to watch them smile and train and laugh, oblivious of the danger that surrounded them. But that was fine. Raphael was willing to be the tough one, the soldier, the warrior, so long as it kept his family safe. They were all that mattered.


End file.
